Using Polar Science Data to Evaluate Media Claims in the Undergraduate Classroom

Polar environments are undergoing climatic changes that include rising temperatures, sea ice loss, and with them altered trophic dynamics, species distributions, and shifts in phenology that cascade through human experience. The challenge for educators is to communicate the interdependent scope, magnitude and human relevance of these issues given the inaccessibility of polar regions. We report on the first offering of a one-semester non-majors undergraduate course designed to empower and engage students with a mechanism for evaluating real-world scientific questions cast through claims made in the media (Guardian, MSNBC, etc.). Students worked directly with polar data in an introductory R-based programing framework to evaluate media claims concerning (1) trends in Antarctic and Arctic sea ice extent, (2) sea ice, krill, and penguin dynamics at Palmer Station, Antarctica, and (3) mercury contamination in the Arctic food web and its impact on traditional diets of native communities. Students initially worked through various polar-themed team-building exercises to foster communication skills required for group work. They also engaged in "paired programming" exercises that taught them how to code, while teaching them to access polar data sets. They then responded to the above claims in an Op-Ed format, while developing interactive graphics that supported their interpretation of the data. Initial results suggest that this active learning approach was successful in teaching both fundamentals of marine science and the basic skills of computer coding so that freshman could access primary polar data sets to evaluate media claims. We are using student performance and several evaluation metrics to improve and scale-up the course for spring 2018 with additional modules on sea level rise